"From the Bay to the Blue Ridge"
by ©2019 Sarah Becker A Nation’s Character “Character, my friends, is a byproduct,” Woodrow Wilson said. “It is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.” Wilson, a wartime President [1914-1919], was born December 28, 1856 in Staunton, Virginia. He was the Scotch-Irish son of Presbyterian minister Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Janet Woodrow Wilson. […]
©2019 Sarah Becker Greenhouse Gases “Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have grown faster in the United States than in the rest of the world…reinforcing calls for unilateral U.S. curbs on the global-warming gas,” The Washington Post wrote in 1989. Today the United States is the world’s second largest carbon emitter. Carbon dioxide molecules, once emitted, remain […]
by ©2019 Sarah Becker Woman’s Suffrage Amendment When the enslaved rebelled against their master[s] they struggled. To struggle, as defined by The Oxford American Dictionary: (1) make forceful or violent efforts to get free of restraint. (2) try hard under difficulties. (3) contend, fight. (4) make one’s way with difficulty. (5) have difficulty gaining recognition […]
by ©2019 Sarah Becker Walt Whitman and the Civil War “In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of that indescribable look),” poet Walt Whitman wrote in 1867 in Old War Dreams. “Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, I dream, I […]
by ©2019 Sarah Becker Copyright © 2019 Sarah Becker Equal Pay Day – Let’s Celebrate??? April 2 is Equal Pay Day. Wanna celebrate? According to the American Association of University Women’s 2018 annual report, The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap, Virginia ranks 29th in gender equality. The Commonwealth’s Equal Pay laws are “weak,” […]
Written by Parker A. Poodle ™ Copyright ©2019 Sarah Becker Thomas & Parker Read Across America “Books are boring,” the green frog said. “Dude, books are fascinating,” the orange frog replied, “Especially this one.” The frogs were discussing Newbury medalist Kwame Alexander’s Surf’s Up. Read Across America Day is March 1st and I, Parker A. […]
by ©2019 Sarah Becker Mary V. Thompson Researcher, Historian, Writer Mount Vernon Research Historian Mary V. Thompson awaits the release of her second book, The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret: George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon (2019). It comes on the heels of Thompson’s first, In the Hands of a Good […]
by ©2018 Sarah Becker Ratification of the ERA “We shall never have equal rights until we take them,” attorney Belva Lockwood said, “nor respect until we command it.” Lockwood, the first female attorney admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court was the Equal Rights Party’s second Presidential nominee, in 1884 and 1888. This month […]
by ©2018 Sarah Becker The Earth is getting Hot… …the politics even hotter. Do Americans adapt to climate change—as President Donald Trump’s environmental policies suggest—or do local, state and federal governments mitigate? Most U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are human roused—the result of burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) for heat, electricity and transportation. Greenhouse gases […]
The Lost Cause and Jim Crow Written by ©2018 Sarah Becker In 1888 Congress established the U.S. Department of Labor; former Union General and U.S. Senator Benjamin Harrison (R-IN) won the Presidency (1889-1893), and the National Farmers’ Alliance and Industrial Union or Southern Alliance emerged. Business gave way to industry; William Burroughs invented the first […]
